Fabian Suarez Guadarrama v. State of Indiana

Pursuant to Ind. Appellate Rule 65(D), this
Memorandum Decision shall not be
regarded as precedent or cited before any
Dec 23 2014, 9:52 am
court except for the purpose of establishing
the defense of res judicata, collateral
estoppel, or the law of the case.
ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT: ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE:
JEREMY K. NIX GREGORY F. ZOELLER
Matheny, Hahn, Denman & Nix, LLP Attorney General of Indiana
Huntington, Indiana
BRIAN REITZ
Deputy Attorney General
Indianapolis, Indiana
IN THE
COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA
FABIAN SUAREZ GUADARRAMA, )
)
Appellant-Defendant, )
)
vs. ) No. 90A04-1406-CR-264
)
STATE OF INDIANA, )
)
Appellee-Plaintiff. )
APPEAL FROM THE WELLS CIRCUIT COURT
The Honorable Kenton W. Kiracofe, Judge
Cause No. 90C01-1307-FC-15
December 23, 2014
MEMORANDUM DECISION - NOT FOR PUBLICATION
CRONE, Judge
Case Summary
Fabian Suarez Guadarrama appeals his conviction for class D felony performing
sexual conduct in the presence of a minor, arguing that the statute defining that offense,
Indiana Code Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3), is unconstitutionally vague as applied to him because
in his case the minor was asleep and was unaware that he was masturbating. We conclude
that Guadarrama waived his argument because he failed to raise it in a motion to dismiss.
Waiver notwithstanding, we also conclude that the statute is not unconstitutionally vague as
applied to Guadarrama because a person of ordinary intelligence would understand that
Guadarrama’s conduct was prohibited. Therefore, we affirm.
Facts and Procedural History
On July 10, 2013, twenty-three-year-old Guadarrama lived with his fiancée Jessica
Gonzalez, their baby son, and Gonzalez’s twelve-year-old sister T.A. That evening, they
watched a movie together in the living room. T.A. fell asleep on a futon, and Guadarrama
and Gonzalez fell asleep on a mattress in the living room. Gonzalez awoke when she felt the
bed shaking and realized that Guadarrama was masturbating. She also heard his cell phone
making a noise.
A couple days later while T.A. was cleaning, she found the memory card to
Guadarrama’s cell phone and gave it to her sister. Gonzalez viewed a video recording on the
memory card showing Guadarrama masturbating. She took the memory card to the police.
Bluffton Police Department Officer Greg Steele viewed the contents of the memory
card, which included seven videos and fifty-five pictures from the morning of July 11, 2013.
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The videos showed close-up shots of T.A.’s buttocks, Guadarrama touching her shorts,
Guadarrama’s face near her buttocks pretending to lick her, and more close-ups of T.A.’s
buttocks. The photographs were close-ups of T.A.’s legs and buttocks and of Guadarrama
smiling and sticking his tongue out by her buttocks. T.A. appeared to be sleeping during the
videos and photographs.
The State charged Guadarrama with Count 1, class C felony child molesting, and
Count 2, class D felony performing sexual conduct in the presence of a minor. At trial,
Guadarrama admitted to recording himself masturbating. The videos and photographs from
the memory card were shown to the jury. The jury deadlocked as to Count 1, and the trial
court declared a mistrial on that count. The jury found Guadarrama guilty of Count 2.
Guadarrama appeals.
Discussion and Decision
Guadarrama contends that Indiana Code Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3) is unconstitutionally
vague as applied to him. As an initial matter, the State asserts that Guadarrama waived this
argument because he did not move to dismiss the information twenty days prior to the
omnibus date. See Ind. Code § 35-34-1-4(b)(1) (requiring that motion to dismiss defective
information be filed no later than twenty days prior to the omnibus date if defendant is
charged with a felony) and § 35-34-1-6(a)(3) (stating that information is defective when the
statute defining the offense charged is unconstitutional). “Generally, the failure to file a
proper motion to dismiss raising the Constitutional challenge waives the issue on appeal.”
Payne v. State, 484 N.E.2d 16, 18 (Ind. 1985); see also Rhinehardt v. State, 477 N.E.2d 89,
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93 (Ind. 1985) (concluding that defendant waived constitutional vagueness challenge by
failing to raise it prior to trial by timely and proper motion to dismiss); but cf. Morse v. State,
593 N.E.2d 194, 197 (Ind. 1992) (concluding that “the constitutionality of a statute may be
raised at any stage of the proceeding including raising the issue sua sponte by this Court”).
We agree with the State that Guadarrama waived his constitutional vagueness argument.
Waiver notwithstanding, Guadarrama’s argument fails. Statutes are presumed
constitutional. Shepler v. State, 758 N.E.2d 966, 969 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001), trans. denied
(2002). The party challenging the statute bears the burden of rebutting this presumption. Id.Due process principles advise that a penal statute is void for vagueness
if it does not clearly define its prohibitions. A criminal statute may be
invalidated for vagueness for either of two independent reasons: (1) for failing
to provide notice enabling ordinary people to understand the conduct that it
prohibits, and (2) for the possibility that it authorizes or encourages arbitrary or
discriminatory enforcement. A related consideration is the requirement that a
penal statute give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his
contemplated conduct is forbidden so that no [person] shall be held criminally
responsible for conduct which he [or she] could not reasonably understand to
be proscribed. ….
But a statute is not void for vagueness if individuals of ordinary
intelligence could comprehend it to the extent that it would fairly inform them
of the generally proscribed conduct.
Brown v. State, 868 N.E.2d 464, 467 (Ind. 2007) (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Indiana Code Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3) provides in relevant part,
[A] person eighteen (18) years of age or older who knowingly or intentionally
… touches or fondles the person’s own body in the presence of a child less
than fourteen (14) years of age with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual
desires of … the older person commits performing sexual conduct in the
presence of a minor.
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(Emphasis added.) Guadarrama argues that “presence” requires awareness on the part of the
child and that in his case T.A. was asleep and unaware that he was masturbating.
We addressed a similar challenge to the constitutionality of Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3) in
Baumgartner v. State, 891 N.E.2d 1131 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). There, Baumgartner
masturbated as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom looking into a bedroom across the
hall where two children, ages two and three, were in bed. The children may have been
awake, but there was no evidence that they were aware of what Baumgartner was doing. The
Baumgartner court rejected his constitutional vagueness challenge, concluding that a person
of ordinary intelligence would have no difficulty in determining that his behavior was
prohibited by statute. Id. at 1137.
Guadarrama contends that in Baumgartner the children were awake, whereas in his
case, T.A. was asleep and there is no dispute that she was unaware of his sexual conduct. We
do not find this distinction significant. The Baumgartner court concluded that Section 35-42-
4-5(c)(3) was not unconstitutional as applied to Baumgartner’s conduct despite its knowledge
that there was no evidence that the children were aware of his sexual conduct. In fact,
Baumgartner also challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that he did not touch or
fondle himself “in the presence” of a child because there was no evidence that the children
were aware of his conduct. The Baumgartner court rejected that argument, observing that
“‘presence’ is defined as ‘the fact or condition of being present.’” Id. at 1138 (quoting
WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 1793 (1976)). The Baumgartner court
concluded that “the statute here does not require that the defendant’s conduct be witnessed by
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the child or that the child be aware of the defendant’s conduct. Instead, it simply requires
that a child under the age of fourteen be at the place where the defendant’s conduct occurs.”1
Id.Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3) proscribes a person from fondling or touching his or her own
body in the presence of a child with the intent to arouse or satisfy his or her sexual desire.
We have no difficulty concluding that a person of ordinary intelligence would understand
that the statute prohibits a person from masturbating in the same room as a child under the
circumstances present in this case. We therefore conclude that Section 35-42-4-5(c)(3) is not
unconstitutionally vague as applied to Guadarrama. Accordingly, we affirm his conviction.
Affirmed.
FRIEDLANDER, J., and KIRSCH, J., concur.
1
Guadarrama argues that “presence” requires awareness for purposes of the execution of wills and
direct contempt of court and that “presence” should have the same meaning for sexual conduct in the presence
of a minor. Those situations are substantially different from this one, and the reasons for requiring awareness
in those situations are not present here. Therefore, we are unpersuaded by his argument. Also, in light of our
decision in Baumgartner, we are unpersuaded by Guadarrama’s reliance on out-of-state case regarding
“presence” and “awareness.”
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